Assistant Mayor Bellwether
Bellwether, also known by her full title, Assistant Mayor Dawn Bellwether, is a diminutive female sheep and the hidden main antagonist in Zootopia. She is the former assistant mayor of Zootopia, the mayor being Leodore Lionheart. She was the mastermind behind the Night Howler operation that caused multiple predatory mammals to go savage. Official Bio :"Assistant Mayor Bellwether is a sweet sheep with a little voice and a lot of wool, who constantly finds herself under foot of the larger-than-life Mayor Lionheart."[http://blogs.disney.com/oh-my-disney/2015/10/26/meet-the-characters-in-zootopia/ Oh My Disney: "Meet the Characters in Zootopia".] Appearance Bellwether is a small, fragile sheep. She wears red glasses over her big green eyes. She has her fluffy white wool styled up in a pom-pom shape on her head. She also has big, floppy ears, and hooves for hands and feet. She wears a deep blue coat over a dress with a leaf-like design on it. Personality At first glance, Bellwether appears as a meek, shy, kind, energetic and eager sheep. She sympathizes with Judy Hopps as she feels the two are both under-appreciated and underestimated and claimed herself as Judy's friend in City Hall. She is eager to help and excited she could be of use since she feels her job as assistant mayor is more of a glorified secretary job. It is obvious throughout the film that she mostly does paperwork and menial jobs while Lionheart is somewhat of a glory hound who dumps the work on her and gets all the attention. However, this is actually a mere façade to hide her true nature; a deceptive and cunningly diabolical mastermind. Bellwether is very prejudiced against predators because, as she puts it, they are only 10% of the population and she seems to view them as dangerous and unintelligent in comparison to the prey. She is power-hungry and willing to let prey get injured or even killed by the predators she turns savage in order to maintain power and turn the populace against the predator minority (showing that despite claiming she cares for prey, she ultimately thinks nothing of sacrificing a few for her cause). She is utterly ruthless, perfectly willing to kill anyone who gets in her way or simply refuses to agree with her beliefs. She has also shown a certain amount of sadism, as she laughed wickedly as Nick "attacked" Judy, clearly enjoying the apparent danger the rabbit was in. She is also highly intelligent and manipulative, organizing Judy's exposure of Lionheart's illegal imprisonment of the savage predators from behind the scenes in order to take over as Mayor, in addition to staging everything to look as if predators have gone savage. However, she does prove to be a show off once her true colours are revealed, arrogantly bragging about her plan before trying to finish off Judy and Nick Wilde, which proved to be her downfall. Role in Film Bellwether first appears alongside Mayor Lionheart awarding Judy for being valedictorian of her class and tells Judy that it is a big deal for all of them (them being the smaller prey) before being pushed aside by Lionheart. Later, when Judy tries to take on the case of finding Mr. Otterton, Chief Bogo is about to fire her for "insubordination" as she took on the job before consulting Chief Bogo and Bellwether hears and texted it everywhere, forcing Chief Bogo to give her a chance (48 hours to find Mr. Otterton). Then, when Judy and Nick realize they could look at the jam cams to find where a jaguar named Manchas (who had gone savage and attacked them but they managed to escape) went, Judy goes to Bellwether to help since Judy doesn't have access to the jam cams. Bellwether helps them look at jam cam records and explains she feels good helping them since she is more of a "glorified secretary" than an actual assistant mayor. After Lionheart is arrested for illegally imprisoning the savage predators, Bellwether becomes the new mayor and tries to convince Judy to be the role model for the frightened prey populace by being on the cover of a big magazine, but Judy refuses and, to Bellwether's shock, resigns from the ZPD. Later, however, Judy discovers that the predators were not turned savage through "natural instinct", but through a serum concocted by a sheep scientist named Doug from unique flowers called "Night Howlers". Judy and Nick race to the ZPD with the evidence, but Bellwether intercepts them and tries to take it from them, making Judy realize that Bellwether is behind everything. As Bellwether and her ram henchmen close in on Judy and Nick, she tries to convince Judy that prey are superior to predators and she should join her cause, but Judy refuses. She captures them, takes back the evidence (a sniper gun used to shoot predators with paintball-like pellets containing the Night Howler serum) and reveals her plans of darting every predator in the city to maintain power and eliminate the predator minority before shooting Nick in the hopes of killing off Judy and making her a martyr while putting the blame on Nick, the only other witness. However, it is revealed that Judy and Nick switched the Night howler darts in the gun with blueberries. Despite this, Bellwether furiously threatens to frame Judy and Nick, like she framed Lionheart, but Judy reveals that she recorded Bellwether's crazed speech with her carrot pen. Before Bellwether has a chance to run, Chief Bogo and the ZPD prey and predator reunited because of the confession, arrive and surround her, having heard everything, and she is arrested for conspiracy and fraud along with her henchrams. She is last seen watching Gazelle's concert with contempt as Doug, Jesse and Woolter clap their hands from their cell. Later, she notices one of her inmates touching her wool; she then angrily swats his hand away before continuing to brood. Relationships Judy Hopps Initially, Bellwether seems very friendly towards Judy. Given that Judy's appointment to the ZPD was a revolutionary step in the large mammal-dominant force, it can be assumed that, even with ulterior motives, Bellwether had a degree of respect and pride for Judy. When Judy was assigned to the case to find Emmitt Otterton, Bellwether was noticeably impressed and congratulated Judy, not able to wait before notifying Mayor Lionheart. Although, her ulterior motives might shed a different light on this eagerness to have a small prey mammal on the case. Still, after Judy gave a press release on the missing mammals, and how they had gone savage, Bellwether was seen telling Judy that she did well. Bellwether even proposed that Judy become the public face of the ZPD; however, Judy resigned before this could occur. When it was revealed that Bellwether was behind the operation that was causing predator mammals to go savage, hiring Doug to shoot them with darts containing a Night Howler serum, Bellwether still offered Judy a chance to join her. However, once she and Nick Wilde were trapped in a hole housing one of the museum exhibits, Bellwether became dismissive of Judy's safety, believing it to be for her own benefits to have Nick go savage and kill Judy. However, Nick never did go savage, as the serum pellet Bellwether fired was actually a blueberry. Judy and Nick had proof that Bellwether was the mastermind behind the scheme, and she was impeached and arrested. Mayor Lionheart Bellwether has a rather unhealthy relationship with her superior Mayor Lionheart, who treats her more like a secretary and a stooge than an actual assistant mayor. Lionheart is usually rather cold and rude to Bellwether, as he often dumps work on her and pushes her aside in public, stealing the spotlight. He also has Bellwether's office located in a small utility room with a loud water heater with stacks of file boxes lining the wall outside her office. Lionheart also occasionally calls Bellwether "Smellwether", and though Bellwether claims this is just a "fun little name" he uses from time to time, he is only seen using it when he is irritated with her. When she does similarly, calling him "Lionfart", it is assumed that he took it badly from Bellwether's assertion that it was not a good day for her. However, though Lionheart tends to treat Bellwether unequally, he is not quite as abusive to her as he appears to be. At one point in the film, when ordering her to take care of other matters while he tends to something more important, he does so gruffly, but somewhat sympathetically adds "please" to his demands at the end, in response to his own roughness. Later, Bellwether mentions that Lionheart made an effort to actually get her a gift, though it was merely a mug labelled "World's Greatest Dad", with the "Dad" scribbled and replaced with "Assistant Mayor' through a marker. On the outside, Bellwether doesn't seem to mind Lionheart; she talks about his treatment of her lightly, treats him with respect and puts a hefty amount of work into assisting him. In truth, however, she is bitterly resentful of him for his treatment towards her and secretly plots to exact revenge by taking over his position as Mayor. This, aside from obtaining control over the city, was her main motivation for her plot to take over Zootopia. Trivia *While designing Bellwether, the animators took inspiration by looking at sheep and lambs from classic Disney films, like "Make Mine Music" and "Melody Time". *The term "bellwether" refers to the sheep that leads the flock. This fits with Bellwether, considering the fact that she is the leader of a team of sheep; Doug, Woolter, Jesse, and at least three other unnamed rams. *All of Bellwether's clothes are made of wool. *There is a foreshadowing to Bellwether's connection with the night howlers; in her office, a sticky note with Doug's name and phone number written on it can be seen: (805)555-0127. Quotes Gallery References Category:Characters Category:Females Category:Sheep Category:Politicians Category:Antagonists Category:Main Characters Category:Prey